


Blood & Steel

by rey_exe



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Violence, Character Death, Gen, Gore, Heavy Angst, an excerpt from Rey's Survival Guide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:58:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18459110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rey_exe/pseuds/rey_exe
Summary: Teng Malar was kind by Jakku standards, and he did not deserve to die as he did.





	Blood & Steel

**Author's Note:**

> After I got Rey's Survival Guide last year I felt compelled to write up a lil thing about a passage that stood out to me the most. Our little sand girl has seen things horrifying beyond imagination. I'm tempted to do little exploration pieces of Rey's past (canon or otherwise) bUT WE SHALL SEE.

 

Even in shadow she is burning, suffocating within the fell star destroyer she navigates with care. It is a great dark oven. Soot blackened and rusted from war and the rot of time; serving only to cook them all one by one, those foolish few that scampered around its belly for barely profitable scraps. And scamper she did, maneuvering well worn paths, a tiny beige speck among ruins. 

 

Small as she is, her footsteps echo like the march of a great army throughout the vast steel skeleton, harmonizing with the footfalls of the man some yards ahead of her. Teng Malar was kind by the standards of this hapless planet, one of the select few junkers that offered to help the youngling attain the tools she needed to survive. He was older than her but younger than the wizened old crones that chattered around Niima’s wash bins. He was young enough to be foolish and brash in the face of everyday horrors, but old enough to fend for himself, to carry on in way she had not yet accomplished unaided. 

 

He lead her through the ships less traveled rafters, away from the looted panels and empty ducts. She is hesitant at first, wary but trusts that he knows his way through this deathtrap. After all, his body was not among the mummified remains that she found on occasion during her solitary excursions through the graveyard of ships.   

 

“I was poking about in here the other day, found some wiring that wasn’t shot. I took the bigger stuff for m’self, of course, since you’re so damn small. But I figured I could share the rest..” He tells her over his shoulder, shooting her a teasing grin. Rey can’t help but roll her eyes in exasperation. He knew as well as all of the others that she was MORE than capable of hefting objects far larger than she. 

 

“How generous of you,” She snips in reply, ducking beneath a low hanging beam that had broken through a portion of durasteel. 

 

A wheezy laugh echos up the passageway as Teng ventures further ahead of her. He’d be lost in the gloom were it not for the reflective gear that hung at his waist, catching the beams of light that pierced through rot like open wounds. Rey hurries to keep up, mindful though, of each step as the ship groans and clanks with each movement. She’d heard from one of the others of a fool that had walked right into a razor sharp fragment of durasteel so thin, his throat was slit before he even knew he was dead. That would not be her, she would be clever in this wasteland, there was no room for stupidity or error. Mistake cost lives and she refused to pay death his dues just yet.

 

Further and further he leads her until anxiety sparks white hot in her veins and hazel eyes glance longingly behind her. They were venturing into the section of ships the others called the danger zone, where one wrong move could drown you in sand or send you falling a thousand feet to your death. The durasteel was worn thin from the elements and the creatures that inhabited Jakku.   

 

“It’s just a bit further!” Teng calls in a voice loud enough to make her flinch, he had turned to face her for a moment, only a moment as he continued to walk backwards… 

 

“Teng, I don’t think you shoul –– ”  her words are cut short as the floor beneath him quakes. Rey’s breath catches in her throat as Teng throws himself sideways, clinging to the nearest support beam as the concave slat fell from its support. A sickly grey-green tint colors his skin as he eyes the space that could have taken his life. One misstep from sturdy rafter to decay… 

 

They stand with bated breath, eyes meeting across the distance before the elder let out a small chuckle, moping at his brow with tattered rags before rocking back on his heels. A cocky smile spread slowly across his lips at his narrow escape, surely feeling incredibly lucky to have avoided such a catastrophic end. 

 

“Watch your step!” He leans one arm against the panel directly to his left in a carefree manner that could not disguise the sweat on his brow “Aren’t you glad that I’m here to test the rafters for you?” 

 

He might have said more, opening his mouth like he had every intention of babbling on to when the panel he rested across gave way. The hatch clanged so loudly as it too was torn away from its resting place that Rey nearly covers her ears, wincing as metal on metal rings and echos on for what felt like an eternity.

 

They stand in silence awaiting the cacophony to cease, only to be met with another sound, one far more horrifying. The rustle of wings rose above the din, like a furious storm had awoke within the vessel, drowning out the jarring reverberation with a much different roar. 

 

This was far worse than the breath of R'iia the Teedo’s forever harped on about, worse than the nagging feeling in her belly when she could not obtain enough rubbish in return for portions, Rey would gladly drown in sand or starve alone in place of this. As the first steelpecker swoops through the hatch, the girl is quick to make herself small, to shrink deep into the shadows where they mightn’t see dessert in that emaciated body she called home. 

 

She watches, horrified as the bird knocks Teng onto his back, gasps as he scrambles frantically in an attempt to right himself. It’s far too late though, his simple mistake had drawn death from his home as surely as if the scavenger had hammered his fist against the doorframe. 

 

The nest of steelpeckers bursts through the mouth of the duct  in a great and raucous cry, swarming the man in the space of a heartbeat until Rey could hardly see him through their tattered dark wings. 

 

“REY! HELP! **HELP** , _PLEASE_! ” His scream is terrible. The pitched high and laced with unimaginable pain. Rey clamps her hands over her ears instantly, hazel eyes round as coins in her freckled face as she watches on in horror. She can’t bring herself to look away from the scene before her. No matter how she willed her lids to shut or her head to move she is utterly frozen. Vicious beaks dig deep into soft flesh. They dive for his face, plucking his eyes from their sockets, tearing at his nose and lips and ears until they are met with bone. The scant muscle that encompassed his torso was ravaged, clothing shredded from his form like slips of paper. 

 

She wishes she could reach into her chest and grip her frantic heart as it pounded mercilessly against her ribs. The sound of it is sure to alert the ravenous birds, even through the din. 

Trembling lips press tight shut as she cowers back into the shadows. Breath held until she was dizzy. It’s willpower alone that keeps teeth from chattering violently in her skull. Every bone in her body threatening to crumble to the ground to add to their gory feast. Every day was fear, but this fear was unlike any other. It was visceral, it was as animalistic. It bled from every pore and threatened to shut down every organ inside of her. Rey felt certain her stomach and bladder would have voided themselves, had she not been malnourished and dehydrated. 

 

His inane babbling is reduced to garbled shrieks as his tongue is rent from between his jaws. Shrieks bleed into barely audible moans as his throat is ripped. The sickening snap of bones pierces her ears, even as she covers them, cruel talons breaking into the cage of ivory ribs. They tear into his gut to splay organs across across the rusted floor, strings of fleshy bits she could not even name splattering feet from his carcass. The air around them is thick with the scent of blood and other fluids. It permeating her nose and mouth, try as she might to cover both with whatever she could. 

 

They mustn’t care that he was not made of the steel they consumed as they gouged flesh with nauseating fervor. Perhaps she mightn’t be picky either, if a meal was placed before her. Perhaps she too would eat with gusto if presented with decadence but she doesn’t want to think of that, she doesn’t want to think of anything anymore. The image of red stained teeth bared in a hideous parody of a grin before the enamel was chipped away would be tattooed behind closed lids for years to come.   

 

The girl remains huddled until the creatures had picked the man clean, a damp spot and rough hewn broken bones all that was left across the corroded metal beams. Ten minutes was all it had taken. Ten minutes to steal his life in the cruelest of ways. What a fool he had been…

 

Tears slip hot down her cheeks as she finally stumbles from her hiding spot, retracing her steps until she was in familiar territory once more. Kriff the blasted wiring, she wound hunt where she always did that day. Portions be damned. 

 

She doubted she would be hungry the next few cycles anyway...

  
  



End file.
